Thursday, February 14, 2019

Enjoying Valentine's Day, courtesy Enoch Bolles

This 1924 Film Fun cover is the earliest Bolles' reference to Valentine's day I've found. The helpless little men theme may come across as peculiar but during the mid-20's it was all the rage among illustrators who specialized in 'pretty-girl' art. In a future post I'll include every example that Bolles painted. This cover pose was reworked by Enoch five years later for a Spicy Stories cover, and he also did another variant used for an ad that ran in the same issue. The rendering of the later cover is so close I fear Enoch simply reworked the Film Fun painting, rather than start with a blank canvas.  Let's hope someone proves my theory wrong and comes up with both paintings. Now that would be some Valentine's Day present!

Thursday, February 7, 2019

John Buscema, Bolles fan?


I saw this panel from a 1993 Punisher comic drawn by the famed Marvel comics artist John Buschema and thought it had to be more than just coincidence. Take a look at the flipped cover from a 1934 Film Fun (I posted a long series on this painting several years back and and how I came to find the original).  What do you think? Was "Big John" a Bolles fan? 

Friday, February 1, 2019

February 1: Working Naked Day!


Not to worry, our man Bolles has this one (un)covered. Nuff said!